


all i want is to be your harbour

by triplesalto



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Darillium, Dirty Talk, F/M, Vulnerability, tied up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-08 20:17:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11653962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triplesalto/pseuds/triplesalto
Summary: “Put your hands on the headboard,” she says, “and don’t let go.”River and Twelve on Darillium; trust, vulnerability, and love.





	all i want is to be your harbour

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a nonny on FFA who asked for Twelve to be tied up. And then the kinkiness grew feelings. :)
> 
> Title is from Vienna Teng's wonderful _[Harbor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTdQRtU5O_I)_.

Six months into their night on Darillium, River touches the slim curve of her handcuffs and smiles to herself. _It’s time,_ she thinks, with a little shiver of anticipation. The Doctor used to go all limp-limbed and pliable when she pinned him down, all huge eyes and insistent kisses; she can’t wait to see how this one’s reactions will have changed. 

He’s intense, this one, this Doctor with his eyebrows and his voice and his expressive face, the way his eyes flash sparks and the way his smile lights up a room like a bonfire. It took him a week after their arrival on Darillium to kiss her for the first time, really kiss her; she hadn’t pushed, though she’d longed to. She’d pushed the last Doctor, by accident. This time she’d let him come to her in his own time. 

This Doctor doesn’t speak in bed, unlike the last one, who never seemed to shut up. When he looks at River in the moonlight, she remembers all her old rules: don’t let him see the damage, don’t let him see you age. But he never seems to see any of the signs that two hundred years have left on her body. No, he smiles at her as if she is the stars themselves, and when he pulls her down to him, his hands are reverent, tender. He presses kisses to her neck, and she holds him close, so very full of joy…

River pulls herself out of her reverie, a hint of a blush on her cheek. Yes. Well. Six months in, and she hasn’t yet brought out the handcuffs. Time to change that!

He is standing on the balcony of their flat, the line of his body graceful at rest. The Singing Towers reach to the sky, off in the distance; she chose this place because of the view. The Towers keep her grounded in the moment – she will never lose sight of the boundedness of their time together, but neither will she forget what he said to her, that first night of this long night. It’s a precious memory, perhaps one of the most.

“Hello, my monolith,” she says, stepping behind him. She presses herself to his back, resting her chin on his shoulder. He is warm, and solid, and _here_.

“Hello,” he says, an amused rumble. 

River reaches a hand down and snaps a handcuff around his left wrist, securing it to the balcony rail.

Whatever she expected from the Doctor’s reaction, it was not for him to spin away and drop into a crouch, his back against the rail and his free hand pulling out his sonic screwdriver in one fluid motion. He stares up at her, eyes startled and full of shadows, and she blinks.

“Sorry,” she says, after a long silent moment. “I didn’t – you used to like it.”

She doesn’t try to free him. She won’t until that terrible frozen tenseness goes out of his spine, and his face softens again. There is something here that she doesn’t know about, some adventure she wasn’t present for, and her heart aches for him.

He puts the sonic away, scrubs at his face with his free hand, keeping it covered. “Yes. Not – maybe not anymore.”

She unlocks the handcuff and drops them on the balcony table, their clink loud in the silent night. “Then we won’t do that.”

“It’s not you,” he says, dropping his hand, letting her see his face. “I remember – but there was a thing, you see, and I was trapped for. For a good while. And I’m not – not good with being trapped.”

River nods, tiny movement. She won’t press him for details; it’s not important. Instead she kneels, leans her forehead against his, breathes him in. His arms come around her, and she drops her head to the curve of his neck, pressing a kiss to his skin, loving the way his breathing changes. 

She doesn’t need the handcuffs, as long as she has the Doctor.

❧

A month later, the Doctor brings her the handcuffs.

They do other things besides have sex, of course. The Doctor would quickly grow bored of an activity that he has always found a bit repetitive. Darillium is a world rich with adventures, even if they aren’t quite as cosmically large as both of them are used to; River has a dig going and the Doctor’s joined a band. He even writes his own songs, although the band’s never played them. River sees the music sheets lying on the table sometimes, the Gallifreyan precise and beautiful. 

(And of course, when they miss the universe too much, they do have a TARDIS standing by. They can be back a minute after they left – and if it’s cheating, stretching their twenty-four years, River doesn’t give a damn.)

Today, however, the Doctor is standing at the foot of their bed with River’s handcuffs in his hand, and River has to swallow hard before she can find her voice.

“I thought you didn’t like those,” she says, aiming for an arch tease but sounding more tentative than she’d intended.

The Doctor smiles. 

After all these years, after all that they’ve been through together and all that they’ve seen, his smile still takes her breath away. His eyes crinkle, and his face softens, and all of that affection is hers, just hers, simple and free.

“I don’t,” the Doctor says, and comes to sit next to her, dropping the handcuffs in her hand. “But I could be persuaded to change my mind.”

River kisses him for that, pulls his head down and opens her mouth against his. He kisses like he does everything, with earnest, single-minded focus, and she takes it all. 

“Not handcuffs,” she says, when she pulls back, watching the way his tongue flickers out across his lip, chasing the taste of her. “You’re not a handcuffs Doctor. But perhaps…” She considers, watching him.

He raises his chin, the hint of a smile in the corners of his mouth, letting her look her fill.

She reaches a hand out, tracing the curve of his smile, and shivers when he turns his head to press a kiss to her fingertips. 

“Do you trust me?” she asks.

He meets her eyes again, and there is no wariness there, like there had been on the balcony. “I married you,” he says, and it is an answer.

“Yes,” she says, mock-playfully, “but you kind of had to. Time itself was at risk.”

He kisses her this time, saying the things with his body that he has never been able to say out loud.

When the kiss ends, she looks at the man she loves, and says clearly, “On your back.”

His gaze is charged, electric. She drinks it in, returning gaze for gaze, and when he turns on his back, lying open and vulnerable for her, she fights back a rush of heat and desire that almost overcomes her. He is _hers_.

“Good,” she says, a little incoherently, and kisses him, quick and easy. “Good.”

No handcuffs. No steel on this Doctor’s wrists; but she has just the thing. 

“Put your hands on the headboard,” she says, “and don’t let go.”

His eyes never leave her face, but his cheeks are a little rosier as he stretches his arms up, his hands closing over the headboard rail. The position is an inspired one; it won’t strain his arms, but it leaves him at her pleasure. He looks so beautiful, and River hasn’t even taken his clothes off yet.

She gets up from the bed, though every cell in her body is shouting at her to stay, and steps across to her wardrobe. Somewhere in the back here she thinks she has – yes, there they are.

When she comes back, straddles his body and rises on her knees, he says, “Scarves.”

River finishes securing his second hand and tying it to the headboard. “You good?”

He pulls at her knots, feeling the give. If he wanted to, he could break free. But he would have to want to; and as River sits back on her heels, she watches his face relax. 

“I surrender to your tender mercies,” he says, his voice rough.

River takes her time. At first she just looks at him, watching the way he flushes under her scrutiny, watching the bob of his throat as he swallows. Where to begin? She spins out the moment as long as she can, letting it swell around her. 

This is her happily ever after. This is the Doctor in her life, in her love, in her bed. For once they are not hurtling by each other, two stars passing in the night; for these few shining years he is her ship come home, and she his safe harbour.

She kisses him, taking as long as she likes. He is sometimes impatient with kisses, finding them repetitive, but tonight, unable to touch her, he is flicker-quick responsive, his body alight under her hands. River strokes fingertips through his hair, feeling him shudder against her, and when she presses hard on the spot behind his ear that he loves, the Doctor actually moans into her mouth. 

He never makes noise, and she feels his incipient startle of embarrassment begin, but she’s having none of that. She does it again, presses her fingers against the spot as she deepens the kiss, lewd and masterful, and he can’t help it, the moan is back. 

“Yes,” she says against his lips, “yes,” and kisses his jaw, kisses under his chin. His hands are straining against the scarves, but this is not his pace to control. It’s hers, only hers.

She bites the curve of his neck, sucks a hickey on his throat. Her mark, set for all to see.

“River,” he says, her name a prayer and a profanity in his mouth. 

River sets to work on his buttons, slow and deliberate, giving him a chance to catch his breath. She wants him on the edge for a good long while; she wants him to remember this, in the years to come, when she is gone.

He’s biting his lip when she looks up, his eyes huge. She knows he’s self-conscious about his body, knows without being told that he wonders if she’s comparing him to his last self, so young and beautiful. Yet he is beautiful too; to her they are both the Doctor, both the man she loves, and both of them make her blood race the faster.

She pushes his shirt open, spreads her hand across the pale expanse of his chest. He’s hairy, unlike the last one, and she likes it. Her mouth follows her hand, and the Doctor swears. That’s new, the swearing, and she laughs, scattering kisses across his chest like snowflakes. 

When her hands stray downwards, he’s already hard, and she grins against his chest. She could tease him about being eager, but she doesn’t want to risk the charged current between them. He is safe here, her responsibility and her trust. Instead she ghosts a hand across his trouser front, drinking in the gasp that he can’t quite catch, and sets to work on his belt. 

The Doctor is the Time Lord who ran away, who no one has ever been able to tie down. River accepts that, she always has – but that doesn’t mean that she hasn’t longed to hold him like this, suspended in her grasp. 

She closes her eyes against a rush of affection, and throws the belt blindly behind her onto the floor. Then her hands are unbuttoning, and he is lifting his hips, and she pulls his trousers down and free, sending them to join the belt. 

He is mostly naked beneath her, his shirt helping to pin his arms, and all River wants is to touch him, to taste every inch of him, to mark his skin as he shudders and make him moan her name. 

“Doctor,” she says, the name a caress, and kisses the inside of his thigh, letting him feel a little of her teeth. 

“River,” he says, his voice almost unrecognisable, and yet still indubitably his. 

“Here?” she asks, and kisses his stomach. “Or here?” His rib. “Or here?” His knee.

He growls, no other word for it, and she smiles. 

“Or perhaps,” she says, her mouth hovering over his cock, “here?”

His first “Please,” is almost polite, his second a half-gasp as she kisses the tip, and then it’s “ _Fuck_ ,” as she takes his cock in hand and lowers her mouth.

If his hands were free, River would put one of them in her hair. She’s always liked the slight pain of a pull, the feeling of fingers tightening in her curls. But this is good too; she varies the speed, gentles her pace when she feels him getting closer, even though he swears and tells her to stop being so bloody infuriating.

River is infuriating, she is incorrigible, she is incredible, she is flying. 

“All in good time, sweetie,” she says, grinning wickedly up at him, letting his cock go despite the noise he makes. She climbs up the bed again, swinging a leg over his chest and letting her weight rest partly on him, pinning him down as she kisses him, dirty and slow. He’ll be able to taste himself on her, and his kisses are more desperate than usual. Sometimes he can be clinical when he’s kissing her, like he’s thinking – isn’t he always thinking – but not tonight. Tonight he kisses her like she’s an oasis and he’s dying of thirst, and she pours herself into him willingly.

“My turn,” she says when they break apart, her voice hoarse. 

For this, she keeps an eye on him, checking for any signs of hesitation or discomfort. But as she kneels up over his face, he suddenly looks up and meets her gaze, and there is such desire, such sheer want in his eyes that she swallows, her throat dry.

“Okay,” River whispers, scarcely audible, and lets herself down.

His mouth on her is hot, demanding, and she is biting back her own gasps almost immediately. “Shit,” she says, breathless, her hands curling over his on the headboard. “ _Fuck_.”

She can’t remember the last time she was this turned on, this desperate, this quickly. His tongue is magical, his mouth exactly where she wants him, and she closes her eyes and rides the waves of her pleasure, losing herself in the moment. 

Most of the time he is her Doctor, her husband, her friend, and they have adventures together, exploring the universe and answering distress calls, making each other laugh and driving each other a little bit crazy. She wouldn’t trade a moment of that easy companionship, that laughter and wonder and all that running. These hours in their marriage bed are not what ultimately defines them; even if this Doctor hadn’t wanted to consummate their physical relationship, she would have loved him just the same.

And yet there is something incredibly special, incredibly precious about these hours. There is nothing in the universe except the two of them – nothing except him, and her, and his mouth on her, and the sob of her breath on the air, and the slide of his tongue – is that _Gallifreyan_ that he is tracing – nothing except her own shout as she comes, grinding helplessly down against him, his mouth continuing to move, working her through it.

She leans her head against the headboard, gasping for air. Rising to her knees again, she kisses his hands, his white knuckles, then climbs down to kiss his mouth, exhausted press of lips as they rest together.

“Do I pass?” he asks, his eyes sparkling. His own voice is hoarse now.

“You know you do, you bastard,” she says, and kisses the smugness out of his mouth.

Then it has been long enough, and nothing remains except to slide down his long, beautiful body and stroke his cock back to full readiness - to kiss it and meet his eyes while licking a messy stripe down it - to watch him swallow, his face taut with want –

River kneels up and places him at her entrance, then takes him in with one long, slow, glorious slide. 

Her name is devout in his mouth as he watches his cock disappear inside her. She thrills to it; she wants him to say her name forever, in as many different tones and moods as she can inspire, and this is one of the best. She clenches around him, and he blasphemes the gods of a dozen different planets, his head tossing on the pillow and his fingers tightening uselessly on the headboard.

“I could ride you forever,” she tells him, her voice uneven. “I know Time Lords. You can stay hard as long as I want, until I let you come. You’re mine, Doctor. Mine.”

River cannot claim him, not truly. She is a child of the TARDIS, but he is a Time Lord. He is beyond the claiming of any one person. And yet she will claim him with every part of her body, for as long as she is able, until the day she dies.

“Do you know how your cock feels?” she says, hearing the little gasps and moans that he seems no longer able to hold back, as she rises and falls. “You fill me. You’re so big, you’re so – so – you – oh god, _there_ -” She wants to talk, she wants him to hear what he is doing to her, but she can’t find the words, she can’t form language, she can’t do anything except set a rhythm, the sound of some celestial music in her ears.

“Come on,” the Doctor says, and he’s trying to help, his hips moving helplessly upwards. She grinds down against him, her rhythm stuttering as she gets close again. “Fuck, _River_.”

Somewhere outside, the Singing Towers are whispering in the wind, unearthly beauty spinning in the stars. Here in their bed, there are tears in River’s eyes, and she throws her head back, her bottom lip caught in her teeth hard enough to leave marks. 

The Doctor’s voice is ragged. “Let me hear you.”

River lets the shout out, as she comes apart above him.

He is still hard inside her when the stars fade. She dismounts, letting his cock slip from her body with some regrets, and smiles when he makes an inarticulate pained noise.

“Don’t worry, my love,” she says, curling her hand around his cock. “I haven’t forgotten you.”

It’s his turn to shout when she seals her mouth around him, a wordless almost sob. It’s not a sound River’s ever heard him make before, and she files it away even as she relaxes her throat, sinking down further. He’s close now, so close, and she sucks hard. 

This is River’s favourite part. She loves it when the Doctor loses control – she loves the feeling of power that comes from having the oncoming storm in the palm of her hand. How much more so is it tonight, with him tied to her bed, vulnerable and willing, open and loud and hers, all hers? She could live forever in this frozen moment, as he writhes underneath her, swearing under his breath, the Gallifreyan syllables falling like the patter of the rain outside.

“River,” he says, trying to warn her, but she knows, she can feel it, and she’s not going anywhere.

She watches his face screw itself up, utterly unprotected, as his release crests. He is beautiful.

When his face relaxes, River leans down to kiss him, moving more slowly now. She tangles their fingers together on the headboard, a caress just as surely as the kiss. 

The Doctor looks into her eyes when she draws back to catch her breath. “Yours,” he says, softly, and her breath catches in her chest, her vision blurry.

She unties his hands, fumbling, hardly able to manage the knots. His arms are immediately around her, pulling her down, holding her close. 

Resting in the Doctor’s embrace, River feels their heartbeats slowing, their breath stabilising. He strokes her hair, and she leans into it, suddenly exhausted. Outside, the Towers are singing.

Whatever may come, this has been theirs.

River closes her eyes. She is smiling.

❧


End file.
